Deutsch

Since the Corona pandemic, the illegal puppy trade is booming like never before - all over Europe! The facts around the highly lucrative business with much too young dog babies, which are bred under animal welfare-unfriendly conditions in Eastern European multiplier stations, are widely known. It is high time to stop this illegal puppy trade!

50,000 puppies are transported per month through the European Union, says a current EU survey. When random police checks stop a puppy transport within the EU, officers find dehydrated, debilitated starved and sick animals.
Brussels has failed to remove the basis for the international puppy trade through restrictive measures. The most important step is to restrict the flourishing sale of animals via the Internet. In Austria, the private sale of animals on the Internet has been banned since 2017, and France plans to ban online animal trade from 2024. The anonymous offering and selling of animals must be prohibited throughout Europe!

We call on the European Parliament to implement the following measures:

• There must be an immediate identification requirement for all people who want to sell animals online. There must be no more offering of animals under the guise of a "private user" or anonymity
• Animals offered for sale on the Internet must be identified with a microchip and registered in a database.
• Those who profit from animal sales on the Internet will have to put up with stricter regulation by the legislator - in future, European trading platforms will be responsible for advertisements with incomplete information about sellers and animals on offer
• A higher control density at all inner-European borders, stricter sanctions for violations and withdrawal of ownership rights to the confiscated puppies.
• A Europe-wide registration of violations in the transport of puppies for the purpose of exchange between countries.
• Close European cooperation to curb the international puppy trade.

Background information and petition on the campaign page of the German Animal Welfare Association: www.gegen-illegalen-welpenhandel.de